PLEASE ADVISE ASAP- Adding chicks to new broody mom with one baby

[Sooner Magnolia]

I have a young flower hen who hatched out one chick on Saturday ( 5 days ago). This is her first brood and they seem to be doing fine. I have a bunch set to hatch on Tuesday (5 days from now). I have 37 in the incubator, but don't plan on keeping all of them. She is currently penned in a very large dog kennel with the baby.

Questions:

Can I give her more babies 10 days later?

How many more could she handle?

Should I buy one at Atwoods tonight to make sure she will accept other babies and help the transition from one to multiple chicks?

I am heading home soon and need to decide ASAP

Thanks!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Only very occasionally hens will accept other chicks days later, the odds aren't in your favor. You can show her some to see if she takes them or tries to attack them. I personally wouldn't try.

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

Only very occasionally hens will accept other chicks days later, the odds aren't in your favor. You can show her some to see if she takes them or tries to attack them. I personally wouldn't try.

I'm leaning towards setting up their brooder close to her and seeing how she acts. If she seems interested, I might give her access to them and see if she adopts them. Or I could put one or two under her while she sleeps. Does that sound like a good plan? Thanks

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I would do the first one, putting them under her this much later is too risky unless you are there at the crack of dawn to watch them.

 

[donrae]

I wouldn't try it. At ten days after hatch, she's going to have "her babies" cemented in her mind, and any other chicks aren't seen as poor helpless orphans that need a momma, but as interlopers and competition for food and resources for her chick.

I think the best outcome you can expect is that she'll tolerate them in the same coop when her chick is several weeks old, and they can grow up together.

 

[chickenrun88]

New guy lol. Hi I was wondering about chicks if I got some and put them with a hen will she trat them as her own

 

[donrae]

New guy lol. Hi I was wondering about chicks if I got some and put them with a hen will she trat them as her own

Nope. She may ignore them, or she may kill them. She needs to be broody before she'll accept chicks. There have been lots of threads about grafting chicks to broody hens.

 

[chickenrun88]

What is a broody hen

 

[JetsChickens]

A broody is a hen that wants chicks. It's determined by hormones. Some hens go broody and some never do.

If your hen is broody she will go and sit in the nest box and usually only come off once a day or every other day. When she is off the nest they have a broody cluck that they make and repeat over and over and over...... Occasionally they will steam roll through other hens and scatter them because they are on a mission when they are broody and want to get their business done and be back on the nest. If you mess with them when they are on the nest they may growl at you, some might screech, most will peck the crap out of your hands, all of them I have ever seen (even the friendly broodies) will puff up their feathers in response to you. If you pull them out and set them on the ground they will remain fluffed up and in a spread out position. On the nest if you watch them and don't interrupt they tend to zone out and stare into space and react to very little until it gets close to the nest.

Personally the most dangerous birds to chicks are non-broody hens in my limited experience, others will probably advise you the same. If you want to introduce chicks and your birds aren't broody it will almost definitely end up with the chicks being killed. If you want to try and introduce them anyone on an off chance someone would want them, make sure you place a divider of some kind between them or something similar, where the hens can't get to the chicks and the chicks can't get to the hens. The hens will probably act interested in them, but that doesn't mean they won't try and peck them to death though.

 

[chickenrun88]

If I let my hens have chicks how will the rooster react to them